Be Internet Awesome
Be Internet Awesome is a digital citizenship and online safety course brought to you by Google. Be Internet Awesome gets kids learning about online safety through an online gaming world called “Interland”. Interland has four worlds to explore and learn from.
The first is Mindful Mountain where students are encouraged to be mindful before sharing information online and to choose carefully your audience for the type of information you are sharing.
The next world is Tower of Treasure. In this world students explore the importance of having a strong password and not using the same password on multiple sites.
The next world is Kind Kingdom. In this world students need to spread good vibes and battle the cyberbullies. Students learn to respect differences and stop the spread of harmful messages.
The last world is Reality River. You need to navigate the river and answer a series of questions based on thinking critically before acting online.
Be Internet Awesome comes with its own curriculum that can be downloaded and used by teachers. It is recommended to follow the curriculum and integrate the Interland activities, so that the activities have context and your students have the background knowledge to be successful in the games.
There is a Be Internet Awesome Pledge that you can download and get your students and parents to sign to spread the online safety message.
If you are a G Suite administrator you can give students direct access to Interland on student Chromebooks.
If you use Google classroom you can also assign Interland to specific classes or make it available to students in the form of a class announcement.
There are posters to download that reinforce the messages conveyed in Interland and in the curriculum. Certificates and badges are available to download to reward your students with. There is even a Papercraft activity template to use.
I have personally used this resource with my class and they were very engaged in it and certainly retained the valuable online safety messages.
Below are two video overviews of Being Internet Awesome.
Be Internet Awesome by Google